Actrise
Actrise is a major villainess in Castlevania 64 and Legacy of Darkness. She is a highly powerful vampire witch, and a high-ranking follower of Count Dracula, who played a big role in his returns in 1844 and 1852. Her name is derived from the word "actrice" which is French for "actress". Biography Background Actrise was used to be a famous stage actress who wished to remain beautiful forever. To that end, she learnt Dark Magic and ended up sacrificing her own daughter, along with 99 other children. Such a gory crime turned her into a vampire, which she welcomed as the eternal youth she craved. She eventually pledged allegiance to Dracula and became a prominent vassal of the King of the Night. There, she kept sacrificing children, sealing their souls in crystals for her lord to use. She also took the elder vampire Gilles de Rais as her personal accomplice. Until the day, around 1840, when Dracula's right-hand Death would bring the witch to the recently risen Castlevania, enlisting her and Gilles' help to resurrect their liege once more. ''Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness'' In 1844, right before the event of the game, Death, Actrise and Gilles de Rais gathered in the Castle Keep's coffin room to resurrect the King of the Night. The rogue beast-man Ortega would later pledge allegiance to them, leading them to Ada, the adoptive sister of his former friend Cornell, whom they abducted as a sacrifice to fully restore the Count to power. Actrise and Gilles de Rais also vampirized the nobleman Master Oldrey, lord of a mansion that had been integrated into the Castlevania, just because they could. Oldrey would torment his wife Mary and his ten-year-old son Henry, yearning to make them vampires in turn, forcing Cornell to drive him away and lead Henry to safety. (Henry later becomes a warrior of the Church and plays a role in Dracula's defeat.) When Cornell storms the Castle to rescue his sister, he reaches a crypt in the mansion's garden, where he defeats Gilles de Rais. Just as Gilles collapses, Actrise appears to take him away, commending Cornell for this victory. Before teleporting away, both vampires muse that the Beast Man could be a match for their liege. After Cornell defeats Dracula and seals him into his dark realm, he is forced to sacrifice his werewolf power to save his sister from Dracula's grasp. Dracula captures Cornell's werewolf form and sends it to his three followers before disappearing; who promptly sacrifice it, ensuring Dracula's reincarnation eight years later and leading to Henry Oldrey's, Reinhardt Schneider's and Carrie Fernandez's quest. ''Castlevania 64'' In 1852, Dracula's three followers send their armies raiding nearby villages and kidnapping many children, looking for the one who is Dracula reincarnated. They locate their liege, who decides to lay low under his child form until he could regain all his power, and use it to distract the vampire hunters. To complete the subterfuge, he orders Gilles to disguise himself as Dracula and to serve as a decoy. As Actrise and Death target one hunter each; the witch takes an interest in Carrie Fernandez, the descendant of the powerful magic-wielding Belnades Clan, and sets out to make her Dracula's servant. As such, she only appears in Carrie's story, serving as her main nemesis. Actrise first confronts the young magic-wielder at the exit of the Underground Waterway. She offers to make her one of Dracula's vassals if she partakes in their effort to bring about his reign, but underestimates the young girl's resolve and inherent purity, and is curtly rebuked. In the Castle Center, Actrise pits Carrie against her estranged cousin Camilla, referred to in-game as the Fernandez Warrior, whom she captured and vampirized sometime prior, as she stormed the Castle to destroy Dracula. Delighted by the prospect of forcing her foe to fight her own kin to the death, Actrise vanishes laughing. *Camilla is not that hard to defeat. She hovers above the ground and keeps firing three blue energy balls that track down Carrie and forces her to run without stop. She also fires three yellow energy balls that anticipates Carries movement, and releases a cloud of freezing blue smoke at close range. She can also strike with her staff at very close range. Carrie must keep her distance and fire her own homing energy balls one after the other until her foes is down. Holy water is also useful. Actrise makes a last attempt to sway Carrie to Dracula's side, on the terrace of the Room of Clocks. She proudly reveals her gruesome backstory, yet Carrie has only pity for the disturbed witch, who could never be a real mother. Furious, Actrise attacks Carrie, but ends up falling under the Belnades' magic she coveted so much. In her last seconds of existence, Actrise's beauty fades away, revealing a hideous face mirroring her own twisted soul. Carrie later muses that Dracula used the wicked witch merely as an obstacle to delay her, knowing full well that she stood no chance. Boss Battle Actrise is not a boss to be taken lightly, but Carrie can take her down without major trouble if cautious and patient enough. She stands at the centre of the terrace and constantly surrounds herself with a defensive barrier of crystals. Carrie must destroy a crystal to get an opening, and strike before it reappears. She must target the smaller ones that she can break with one homing energy ball, with the bigger ones needing two or three to break. Still, Actrise recreates them quickly so Carrie must waste no time. Actrise will make multicolored pointed crystals erupt from the ground right under Carrie's feet without end, forcing her to move constantly. (They can be detected from the lights on the ground from which they appear.) She will also fire a cluster of crystal shards that hold Carrie in place until she gets hit, two white energy balls, a fast barrage of energy beams from above (Carrie must jump or glide ahead) and a powerful energy beam that bounces against several crystals to target Carrie again and again, forcing her to dodge more than once. Appearance Actrise is a beautiful woman who looks like in her thirties, wearing elegant (albeit anachronic) black robes and a jewel-adorned hat, in fact a mix-up of fashions from later years, and carrying a magic golden staff. She is never outright stated to be a vampire, although her white skin, red eyes, the eternal life she boasts about and the gruesome way she gained it, not to mention the people she turned into vampires leave no doubt. Personality Actrise is arguably the most revolting villain of the entire series. Anyone turning into a vampire only retains their worst traits amplified, yet how she became one shows that she was already so rotten she hardly changed. She acts in a collected fashion, speaking of gruesome things in a casual and almost playful tone, and addressing people with a false courtesy laced with jeering. She is at heart devious, vicious, uncaring, hideously cruel and gleefully sadistic. She delights in tormenting her victims and dismisses her countless gruesome murders of children as trivial matter. She is extremely vain and egomaniacal, valuing her beauty more than the life of her very daughter. Also, she despises her nemesis' empathy and is envious of her greater might. She would stop at nothing to have Carrie as her vampire slave, getting both her liege's good graces and rid of a rival. Powers and Abilities She is a considerably skilled witch, who can sense auras, levitate, teleport herself and people, conjure things, perform rituals, among many more. She masters crystal-based magic, encasing her victims in huge red ones, conjuring many crystals of all sizes and colour for all sort of purposes, including attack and defence. She probably resides in the eldritch Tower of Sorcery, filled with platforms made of crystals similar to her own floating in a dark void, crystals firing energy bolts, and crystal born monsters. External links *Actrise at the Castlevania Wiki Navigation Category:Alternate Reality Villains Category:Dark Fantasy Villains Category:Video Game Villains Category:Castlevania Villains Category:Female Category:Undead Category:Vampires Category:Magic Category:Archenemy Category:Egotist Category:Faux Affably Evil Category:Provoker Category:Psychological Abusers Category:Murderer Category:Homicidal Category:Deceased Category:Destroyer of Innocence Category:Immortality Seeker Category:Immortals Category:Neutral Evil Category:Minion